Violence writ large

Professor Philip Dwyer and his team from the Centre for the History of Violence are
leading a fundamental rethinking of violence in the modern world.

You only have to turn on the television to become immersed in violence, points out Professor Philip Dwyer.

"It is such a present thing, whether it is the conflict in Libya, the war in
Iraq, riots in London or the case of a footballer who has assaulted a female
fan, violence is a constant within our world.

"Yet, we don't really understand the processes behind it, we don't understand
what it is that makes people commit these acts of violence. This, as a
phenomenon, hasn't been the object of detailed and profound research."

Probing the underlying historical factors of violence is an integral aspect
of the research of the Centre for the History of Violence, led by Dwyer, within the Faculty of
Education and Arts.

Dwyer describes the research agenda of the group, an alliance of historians,
sociologists and language experts, as "violence writ large", embracing anything
from war and massacre to criminal acts, sexual and domestic assault,
intellectual violence or violence in film and literature.

With the momentum created by their interdisciplinary meeting of the minds,
Dwyer and his team have developed grander ambitions for making the University of
Newcastle a leading international research hub in the field of violence
studies.

"Violence has been studied within different disciplines over the past 10 or
15 years but it is really coming into its own as a field and researchers in
Newcastle are at the forefront of this," Dwyer says.

"We see an opportunity to pull together researchers from lots of different
universities and disciplines and substantiate, in effect, this new field of
study.

"You can ask the very simple question, 'What is violence?' and come up with
all sorts of different responses depending on what field someone is in," he
says.

Dwyer's own interest in violence emerged from research into his award-winning
book Napoleon 1769-1799: The Path to Power, which was published in 2008.

"It was quite accidental; as I was writing the first volume of the biography
I came across lots of massacres by Napoleon's troops in Italy and Egypt and I
had never really seen any detailed research on them, so I delved into it," he
says.

"But even before that, I guess, there was this desire as an undergraduate
teacher to be able to explain to students what it is that makes a 'normal'
individual commit extreme acts of violence.

"It's very intriguing question - it is all about us but we don't really
understand it."

Career Summary

Biography

Philip Dwyer studied in Perth, Paris and Berlin before receiving his doctorate from the University of Western Australia. His first posting was as a Leverhulme Fellow at the University of Dundee. He has taught European History at the University of Newcastle since 1994. His primary research interest is eighteenth-century Europe with a particular emphasis on the Napoleonic Empire. Volume one of his study on Napoleon won the National Biography Award in 2008. The second volume published in 2013 was short-listed for a number of prizes. The third and final volume of Napoleon is due out in 2017. He is currently working on a global history of violence. Philip is founding Director of the Centre for the History of Violence.

Recent Publication - Citizen Emperor: Napoleon in Power 1799-1815

About Citizen Emperor

'Napoleon's legend is so persistent that it confounds the historical reality in the popular imagination. He himself contributed much towards the construction of his own myth, from his youth even until after he fell from power, when, while in exile, he dictated his memoirs to a group of disciples who took down his every word in the hope that his version of history would prevail. Such were Napoleon's skills as a chronicler that much of the legend is still unquestioningly accepted...'

This second volume of Philip Dwyer's outstanding biography sheds further fresh light on one of the great figures of modern history. After a meteoric rise, a military-political coup in 1799 established Napoleon Bonaparte in government, aged just thirty. This meticulously researched study examines the man in power, from his brooding obsessions and capacity for violence, to his ability to inspire others and realise his visionary ideas. One of the first truly modern politicians, Napoleon skilfully fashioned the image of himself that laid the foundation of the legend that endures to this day; Philip Dwyer's ambitious, definitive work separates myth from history to offer us anew one of history's most charismatic and able leaders.

Reviews

“This remarkable first volume of biography explodes many of the myths that have gathered around Bonaparte” – The Sunday Times

“A superb work of both scholarship and literature. We are clearly in the presence of what will be a monumental work” – Andrew Roberts onNapoleon: The Path to Power 1769-1799

Research ExpertiseMy research focus is on late eighteenth and early nineteenth century French and European history, with a particular interest in the history of European state-relations, political history as well as biography, and iconography. My current research has taken me into cultural history, war, memory and identity during the Napoleonic Wars. I am attempting to develop new ways of thinking about Napoleon and the period in which he lived. I have recently completed the second volume of my Napoleon biography as well as writing about war memoirs. As the Director of the Centre for the History of Violence, we welcome researchers and postgraduate students exploring all aspects of violence, including its concepts, representations, and aftermaths, as well as questions of interpersonal, political and cultural violence.

Teaching ExpertiseI teach a range of courses across Modern European History, including the compulsory first year subject, HIST1001, Europe and the World.

Administrative ExpertiseI am currently Director of the Centre for the History of Violence.

CollaborationsMy research focus is on late eighteenth and early nineteenth century French and European history, with a particular interest in the history of European state-relations, political history as well as biography, and iconography. My current research has taken me into cultural history, war, memory and identity during the Napoleonic Wars. I am attempting to develop new ways of thinking about Napoleon and the period in which he lived. More recently, and in collaboration with scholars in Australia, South Africa and North America, we have undertaken a study of massacre and colonization from 1780 to 1820. The project grapples with one of the most difficult issues in recent history- relations between the conquerors and the conquered. It is the first study to investigate the use of massacre as a military strategy of colonial expansion, and to place its incidence in the context of conquest across four continents in the same historical period. We are attempting to break new ground in how we think about the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, the language used by historians to describe the process of conquest and colonization, and the extent to which massacre was used as a colonizing tool.

Qualifications

PhD, University of Western Australia

Bachelor of Arts, Murdoch University

Licence (B.A. Honours equivalent), Universite de la Sorbonne

Maitrise, Universite de la Sorbonne

Diplome d'Etudes Approprondies, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes

Keywords

Biography

Eighteenth-Century Europe

Europe and the World

Film and History

History of Violence

Modern European History

The French Revolution and Napoleon

The Massacre in History

War Memoirs

War and Society

Languages

German (Fluent)

French (Fluent)

Fields of Research

Code

Description

Percentage

210304

Biography

20

210307

European History (excl. British, Classical Greek and Roman)

60

210399

Historical Studies not elsewhere classified

20

Professional Experience

UON Appointment

Title

Organisation / Department

Professor

University of NewcastleSchool of Humanities and Social ScienceAustralia

Academic appointment

Dates

Title

Organisation / Department

1/06/1994 -

Lecturer

University of NewcastleEducation and ArtsAustralia

Membership

Dates

Title

Organisation / Department

Advisory Member - Council of the Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution

Florida State UniversityInstitute on Napoleon and the French RevolutionUnited States

Awards

Distinction

Year

Award

2015

Short-Listed, National Biography AwardState Library of New South Wales

2015

Short-Listed, NSW Premierâs Literary AwardsNSW Premierâs Office

2014

Short-Listed, Prime Minister's Literary AwardsCommonwealth

2014

Short-Listed, The Western Australian Premierâs Book AwardsThe Western Australian Premierâs Office

Research Collaborations

The map is a representation of a researchers co-authorship with collaborators across the globe. The map displays the number of publications against a country, where there is at least one co-author based in that country. Data is sourced from the University of Newcastle research publication management system (NURO) and may not fully represent the authors complete body of work.

Historicising Violence: the Contested Histories of Present Day Conflict

A multidisciplinary conference convened by the Centre for the History of Violence at the University of Newcastle, Australia, to be held at the Rome Global Gateway, University of Notre Dame, Rome, 22-24 November 2017.

Attendees at the Australian Historical Association conference will have the opportunity to get hands-on experience using computational linguistics for historical analysis and learn from one of the leading scholars in the field.

The Director of the Centre for the History of Violence
at the University of Newcastle, Professor Philip Dwyer, has been awarded an
Academic Writers Residency by The Rockefeller Foundation to conclude work on "The Dark Side of Empire: Violence and
Colonialism in the Old and New Worlds, c1780-1820."